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Today’s news briefs include Venezuelan dictator changing date of Christmas; UK grapples with high-rise fire that killed 72; North Korea executes up to 30 officials over flooding.
Report released on high-rise fire that killed 72
A public inquiry into the horrific 2017 London Grenfell Tower fire blames the disaster on “failings by government, the construction industry and most of all the firms involved in fitting the exterior with flammable cladding,” NBC reports. Seventy-two people, many of them pensioners or disabled, died when the fire ripped through the 23 floors on June 14, 2017. It was Britain’s deadliest blaze in a residential building since German bombing campaigns of World War II. Most blame fell on companies involved in the maintenance and refit of the apartment tower, especially companies that had dishonestly marketed combustible cladding materials as safe. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the failures that surrounded the Grenfell disaster raise “fundamental questions about the kind of country we are.”
Venezuela’s dictator changes date of Christmas
Christmas will start next month in Venezuela, dictator Nicolas Maduro has decreed. The strange move comes amidst a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters after Maduro stole the presidential election this summer. “September smells like Christmas!” Maduro said in his weekly television show on Monday, to the giggles of his followers. “This year and to honor you all, to thank you all, I am going to decree the beginning of Christmas on October 1. Christmas arrived for everyone, in peace, joy and security!” he said. Just a few hours before Maduro’s announcement, Venezuelan authorities published an arrest warrant for his main rival, opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez, CNN reports.
North Korea executes officials over flooding
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un executed up to 30 government officials he blamed for devastating floods over the summer that killed thousands, according to a new report from South Korea. The South’s TV Chosun reports that Kim blamed the officials for failure to stop the deadly flooding but he made a two-day tour of Uiju in August where he accused the South of exaggerating the extent of the damage from the floods, decrying it as a “smear campaign” and a “grave provocation” against his government, reports the AP. Kim regularly executes government officials seen as undermining North Korea’s reputation.
Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice
